In mobile communication networks, there is always a challenge to obtain good performance and capacity for a given communications protocol, its parameters and the physical environment in which the mobile communication network is deployed. One parameter related to performance and capacity of a wireless device in a mobile communication network is the network resource configuration associated with the wireless device.
One particular parameter that may influence network resource configuration is customer churn or subscriber churn. It is known that acquiring new subscribers requires more resources than retaining existing subscribers. Hence there exists a value in preventing potential churners on time. Subscribers become churners when they discontinue one operator's subscription and move to another operator.
There exist a large number of churn models in the market which try to predict churners based on the history of their behavior. In the published patent application US2011/0206579 A1 entitled “System and Method of Management and Reduction of Subscriber Churn in Telecommunications Networks”, customer churn is predicted based on the user's usage behavior by considering usage history for 2 to 4 months. However, on a day-to-day scenario, subscribers' behavior changes dramatically owing for example to external parameters such as campaigns, competitor advertisement, etc. Thus, predicting churn based on history challenges its accuracy and even more, may not prevent churn on time. Data explosion in telecom usage makes the churn analysis still more difficult, as most of the churn detection models need a large amount of historical data to be maintained, which imposes heavy resource requirements for calculation and storage. Also, the significant number of false positives in churn prediction could lead to the operator launching retention campaigns to a number of non-churners, which in turn would result in revenue and resource loss.
As noted above, subscriber churn may be related to network resource configuration. Hence, there is a need for an improved network resource configuration.